Carlos Colon’s Hall of Fame ring has to be delivered to him in Torito’s nose, right? And then Carlito will spew apple on everyone? Being in a wrestling family must be weird.

Best: The Shield Sticks it to the Man

Needless to say I wasn’t looking forward to Smackdown’s Kane/Big Show main event. Kane and Show have less chemistry than any pairing in WWE history — they’ve probably wrestled literally (real literally, not Michael Cole literally) hundreds of times, and it’s never been any good.

Thankfully they got it over fairly quickly and the final few minutes of the show were great. Things weren’t going Kane’s way, but the guy’s no good at slithery Triple H-style evil, so he just starts screaming at The Shield to get in there and mob Show, and The Shield is all, “Come on man, a little subtlety. How gauche” and bail. Somehow Kane gets his hands of Rollins and tries to intimidate him and then BAM, FRIENDSHIP SPEAR FROM REIGNS, which is totally badass and reinforces Reigns and Rollins as the relationship at the core of The Shield. Reigns wouldn’t be spearing Kane for Ambrose.

So, The Shield has blatantly thumbed their nose at the authority, buuut, the incident was mostly the fault of Kane and his petty rage, and The Shield did do Triple H’s bidding earlier in the show, so they haven’t definitively joined with the forces of good. There’s still enough uncertainty here to keep us going until Wrestlemania, where, if there’s goodness in this world, we replay this scenario with Triple H and Daniel Bryan. Fingers crossed.

I’m assuming there is some kind of extra reward for the guy who gets the pin in a tag match. Not a larger paycheck, mind you, but maybe it’s effectively like calling shotgun for the ride to the next town, or maybe the guy who didn’t get the pin has to pump the gas while the guy who did gets to stay in the car and rock out to Ke$ha.

I don’t think WWE has ever established there’s an extra reward if you get the pin in a tag match — if anything they’ve gone to some lengths to establish the opposite. That teams that are selfless and function as a until are most successful.

No extra reward from the WWE itself, and I would expect face tag teams to be selfless, but being egomaniacal fits perfectly for a heel team (technically the Ream Americans are still supposed to be heels, despite Cesaro getting face pop like crazy) and I can picture there being bragging rights and special privileges within the team for the guy who got the pin. Like if they’re eating a pizza (they eat pizza because they’re Real Americans), the guy who got the pin gets rights to the last slice if there’s ever a dispute.

-“He then goes on a spiel about how he’s been protecting Bryan all along, which isn’t true…”

is it not, though?! is this a hidden message from hhh to the IWC making them realize how “prortected” daniel bryan has been in the booking since summer slam? having the last entrance in tag matches even after guys like cena? having his music close the show every show? beating 3 big powerful guys every night for quite some time? even recently beating swagger with an injured leg, and then beating cesaro after that in the same night with an even more injured leg just before the elimination champer match when cesaro was being pushed still, as another example?!

I see what you did there, mr. triple h, and I like it.

-thanks so much for the bit about tag-stealing! it’s so stupid, but it was fine before they started using it as much as they have been lately… not anymore, though. stop it, WWE!

-LOOOOL at what AJ Lee, the secret most misused talent in the company, did here. and screw JBL and cole. and damn brie bella for her shouting. and f*ck the “we still want ryder!” sign guy in that match.

-“There’s still enough uncertainty here to keep us going until Wrestlemania, where, if there’s goodness in this world, we replay this scenario with Triple H and Daniel Bryan. Fingers crossed.”

I know it’s silly to fantasy book, but what the hell. Bryan beats Triple H and the inevitable Triple H beat down starts. Out comes Kane to help Hunter beat up Bryan some more before the main event. Shield music hits and they come down to the ring, looking like they’re going to beat up Bryan, but end up saving him instead rendering The Authority incapacitated for the triple threat and finally turning full face.

The sibling rivalry between the shield always plays out in an honest, unique way. Their relationship is not really like anything I’ve seen in the WWE before, and this is due to the strength of the performers and the way they’ve each been handled.

There’s nothing simple about it – where one person gets mad at another person and the other person betrays some other person and it culminates in a match (though it might seem like that’s what’s happening, there’s a deeper level to what’s going on between the members of The Shield). The three performers (Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose) want to stay together.

They are struggling against their natural instincts to expand beyond the group so as to conquer greater challenges. It’s as though they’re afraid to move on. Each is struggling with an internal battle resultant from natural growth and a desire to remain united, safe. And some are ready to move forward more than others which heightens the conflict. Perhaps I’m reading into it more than is necessary, but I think this depth is unavoidably present and reflects conflicts that occur in real-life between friends and family.

I started to think it would’ve been cool if the bottom tips of his beard were dyed yellow so it looked like a crown when he does his upside down turnbuckle thing, but then immediately thought of JBL ruining it with an “it’s the yellow king Maggle!”

Kane/Big Show where they busted out the catch wrestling was good. I mean, it was still a seven-minute medium-speed version of a segment that would’ve taken about two minutes, tops, in an Angle/Benoit match, but it was way better than it had any right to be.

The Roman Reigns/Bray Wyatt match from Raw a couple weeks ago was damn good, even if that shit-ass Green Bay crowd wasn’t paying any attention to it.

The only time Bray hasn’t looked good was the inferno match debut (because inferno matches are garbage and practically no one can have good singles matches with Kane) and the pointless R-Truth squashes.

It was just two dudes whipping the dirt out of each other for like 12 minutes. I liked it. It just had the misfortune of being the first Shield/Wyatts match after that amazing 6-man at EC, re-used a non-finish from earlier in the night and took place in front of a garbage crowd.

Much like with Cesaro, a Shield face turn is going to happen whether the WWE wants to pull the trigger or not, these guys are just getting way too much face pop. Ambrose they could definitely keep heel, but as for Reigns, Rollins, and Cesaro, short of having those guys come out to a ring full of puppies and having them kick said puppies, I don’t know how you can keep them heel much longer.

That hasn’t been true for years. When guys are red hot, WWE doens’t shy away of pushing their own agenda and forcing the audience to adapt. Christian was getting huge pops, and when they had him turn on Randy, the crowd chanted CHRISTIAN the whole way through. WWE edited out the chants, made him get cheap heat, and eventually, the audience adapted. The audience was still chanting FEED ME MORE when Ryback turned too. WWE just doesn’t care. They know they can get the general audience to eat up anything they throw.

I have a feeling they’re just going to be in the Battle Royal. I think they don’t break up before WM — they break up *at* Wrestlemania, perhaps as part of the Triple H/Bryan match. The break-up is actually the bigger moment than the subsequent match (that’s a foregone conclusion — Reigns wins), so the break-up happens on the big show.

I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that Reigns wins the match. They could easily have Seth win by pinning Ambrose, building up a personal Seth/Dean feud while Roman moves on to bigger things like feuding with Batista, Brock, Bray, etc.

Can’t wait until 2016 when Ziggler is WWE World Heavyweight Champ, and I bring out my pink “It’s not showing off if you back it up” T-shirt, and claim I’ve been there since day one. Now where did I put that thing.